Big East Looks For A Big TV Deal Amid Realignment

May 26, 2012|By PAUL DOYLE, pdoyle@courant.com, The Hartford Courant

A year ago, Big East Conference leaders walked away from a deal with ESPN that was worth more than $1 billion over nine years.

Since making that decision, the conference has lost marquee programs (Syracuse, West Virginia and Pittsburgh) and watched football power Texas Christian leave before it officially arrived. The conference responded by expanding far and wide, adding schools in various time zones in an effort to bolster its sagging football league.

And through all of the reshuffling, the TV money has flowed to other conferences. The Pac-12 signed a $3 billion deal with ESPN and Fox, the ACC recently locked up a $3.6 billion deal with ESPN and the Big 12 is said to be close to signing a $2.6 billion deal with the Bristol-based network.

So the question hangs over the Big East: Did the conference make a colossal mistake in not taking the money last year?

The answer depends on who you ask.

"Well, we continue to be amazed at the size of these deals," said sports economist David Carter, executive director of the Sports Business Institute at the University of Southern California. "What the landscape looked like a year or two ago has obviously changed dramatically. ... But clearly they are now in a relatively disadvantageous position based on the comings and goings in their conference."

But New York-based sports media consultant Lee Berke believes that history will show that the Big East was wise to wait.

"As tempting as it may have been, the marketplace has only gotten hotter in the interim," Berke said. "There are only a relatively fixed number of major college and professional sports out there, but there is an increasing number of potential outlets bidding for those properties. … Honestly, I think there they are going to do substantially better. They've added some strong up-and-coming football schools in strong markets throughout the country. I think that's going to pay off for them, with the caveat that they remain stable."

And, indeed, representatives from NBC Sports and Fox met with Big East officials in Florida at the annual conference meetings last week. ESPN was also present, and it seems that all three outlets have strong interest in the conference.

The current deal with ESPN is expiring and ESPN has exclusive negotiating rights starting in September. The challenge for the Big East between now and then is to keep the conference structure in place.

That might not be easy. Boise State, which will arrive as a football-only member in 2013, has reportedly wavered. Without the presence of the nationally ranked Broncos, the Big East is far less attractive as a football conference.

Also, Louisville has been open about its desire to join the Big 12. UConn and Rutgers are also considered candidates for the ACC.

So, if the football conference is at all diminished before the next deal is secure, the Big East will probably lose dollars. And with more schools added to the conference, the distribution of revenue will already be smaller for members.

"This is all driven by football," Carter said. "And even now, when you think about the Big East, you still think about basketball. So it's already a challenge."

Said Berke: "Football is driving the bus with every college conference deal. Basketball is taken care of, it's taken care of by the tournament. The regular season, basketball has some value, but it's relatively speaking a commodity. There are literally thousands of college basketball games, men's and women's, out there. … The bulk of your revenue, the bulk of your profitability, as a school or a conference, comes from football. That's why it's absolutely critical for the Big East to be seen as a vital football conference."

And despite what seems to be a hodgepodge of programs spanning the country, the Big East does offer something that media outlets covet — lots and lots of programming. The conference will eventually have 13 football schools with teams based in four times zone, providing a steady stream of games.

The teams might not be vying for BCS titles, but the Big East can offer a high level of football for viewers with an insatiable appetite for sports.

"It's a footprint that's national in scope and those are some good schools," said former Madison Square Garden president and sports television executive Bob Gutkowski, who runs the sports and entertainment division of New York-based Innovative Strategic Management. "So I think distributors are interested in their product. … Look, they have machines that need programming 24 hours a day. The Big East is still a very good product."

Gutkowski also points out that the emergence of NBC Sports and Fox's increased interest in adding college sports programming will only drive the price higher when negotiations get serious. So although the Big East might be declining, the market for programming could still result in more revenue for the conference.